While almost everyone has heard of minisites by now, if you know anything about internet marketing, very few people have considered using a free and open source CMS or content management system, like Mambo or Joomla, which is based on the Mambo code, to produce minisites.
What are the benefits of using a CMS like Joomla to quickly create and deploy mini-sites on the Internet?
1. Joomla is easy to use and you can use thousands of free CSS-based templates that support the latest standards and have a site up and running in hours, not days.
2. Joomla supports easy wysiwyg or what you see is what you get visual editors that allow you to configure and add content to a site as easily as using a word processor on your desktop computer. What this means is that your site is compliant with the latest web 2.0 standards and you can grow content easily and quickly without redeveloping your website from scratch.
3. Joomla has thousands of extensions and you can easily create websites that compete with sites that cost tens of thousands of dollars for nothing. You can easily add membership sites, photo galleries, streaming video, audio, chat, and forums, as well as rich blogs. In short, everything to make your site “sticky” and keep attracting those visitors over and over again.
4. Joomla makes changing the appearance of your site very easy, as you can change your template and quickly change the appearance of your website in just minutes, allowing you to update your site from time to time.
5. Joomla is continually updated and is now releasing a beta version called 1.5. Most people are still working on 1.03 or so, but it’s good to know that there are future updates available.
6. Joomla is now compatible with many hosting services and can be installed by Fantastico scripts with just one click. There is a user manual and several video packs that show you how to create templates and set up for-profit membership sites.
7. Joomla and most of its extensions or plugins are free and open source, so it is cheap to have a very professional web presence on the Internet.
Despite all the advantages, it will take you a few weeks to get used to the new methodology of using a CMS to manage and implement your websites, unless you are used to creating websites from your browser. However, once you get the hang of it, you never want to go back to the slow and laborious desktop website creation and loading system.
I recommend that you go to one of the sites called Joomlatutorials.com and review the tutorials immediately after installing Joomla and before working on your own site. Basically, you start with a template that you get for free from the largest free site template repository called http://www.joomla24.com. They have over 1,500 free templates that you can get started with. Alternatively, you can opt for one of the many commercial template companies that offer a variety of paid templates that you can modify and convert on your site.
Once you select the template, you need to change the permissions on your template and media areas of your templates section in Joomla in your public html directory so that you can make changes to the template and the appropriate files.
You can do this within joomla or more often, from cpanel using your file manager functions and set the file permissions to 777 for folders and 666 for files.
You need to get a login from your hosting company after installation so that you can go to the administrators section from where you manage and create the site and make changes and add content to the site.
After logging in, go to the templates section in the site manager and click new.
You are then presented with a dialog box asking you to navigate on your computer and choose the site template which should be in zip format and upload the template to your site. After a few minutes, if it succeeds, and it prompts you, and then you click continue. Then your site template will be listed with the other default templates. Click the radio button to make the template you installed the default template.
Then you click the radio button to select the default template and then click html to edit the html of the template page. It will check the image files on the page.
As you can see you need to study html and I would especially study CSS or style sheets and cascading tables so you know how to put things on the page. In either case, you should find the header graphic and replace it with a graphic header for your logo or a header image for your site.
You need to make sure that the graphic is slightly smaller than the indicated size so that the graphic or logo in the header displays without altering the format of the template or page. You should upload using an ftp program like Transmit or Filezilla the image file you want to use for your logo or header image. Once you find the joomla folder in the public html folder, you need to click on it to find the templates folder. Inside that is a folder of images. You must upload the chosen image to that folder. It should be a .jpg or .gif file in the same format as the one used in the template if possible. Once the image appears in the file, your next job is to change the html in the html file and replace it with the name of the image you uploaded. So when you lift your [http://www.sitename/joomla] Your home page should display your graphic logo or header file.
Next, you need to unpublish those buttons on the main page that you don’t need. You go to the main menu section and unpublish everything except the home button. You will need to go to the joomla extensions page and menu section and find a menu extension that will allow you to use images or other files to configure your menus. Then you’ll have the appropriate file extension ready when it’s time to link your menus, which is the last step in setting up your website.
One thing you can do now is find out what extensions or extras you will need on your website. You may have a direct minisite, but you will do better in search engines and in the eyes of your visitors if you have a topic-based content site and not just a sales page. If you add a chat client, a forum, and a blog to your site, you will find that your visitors engage with the site and keep coming back. The more they are on your site, the more likely they are to buy what you have to offer, be it an affiliate offer, an ebook, or a membership.
Review each section of the extensions. Especially the graphics section where all the banner ad extensions are. You can monetize the site with banners and / or text ads that will bring additional money to the site. It is true that if you use AdSense on your site, your site will appear in search engines sooner. There are several AdSense modules. You will need to add docman or Remository if you are setting up files to download on your site. The Community Builder or AEC will come in handy if you are setting up a membership site. You will need one of wsiwyg’s content editors in the content and news section so that you can edit your pages easily and quickly. You must set your wysiwyg editor as your default editor for Joomla. Then when you go to add content, you can edit your pages quickly and easily. You need to go to the Blog section and add X-Blogg to edit your blog offline and download one of the blogging programs to easily set up and run a blog from your site. You will need to add one of the payment processors and / or a shopping cart to your site if you will be selling products from your site. Once you’ve added all the extensions, be it a component, module, or mambot, you’re ready to move on to the next step.
Next, you will start adding the sections that you will need on your site. Then you will add categories to the sections until you have divided your site into an organized entity. You will then edit the main page using the content editor and the wysiwyg editor which you have made the default content editor. You will add images and add articles so that everything is done to your satisfaction. Use surveys, banners and AdSense or other text ads for your affiliate programs on the homepage on a rotating banner or rotating ad program. That way, you can track where most of your sales are coming from. Keep adding articles and other sections to your site until it’s done. Don’t forget to add sales pages for each of the affiliate products or opportunities you are promoting. Then you will add a thank you page for any downloads you need to offer or e-books or software. You will have to configure the extension and add any thumbnails or links for which you need to download products.
Once everything is set up, check all your images and your spelling for all your articles. Check your links and make sure everything is in order. Make sure your shopping cart works properly by adding sample products and ordering them. Make sure all forms are working properly to add your visitors to your subscription list.
Add your newsletter buttons and configure your emails. Set up your automatic responses for any newsletter request or request. I suggest that you set up your newsletters in an archive section on your site so that people can download them from the site in case your spam filter eats up your newsletter.
Once everything looks good, publish your pages.
Congratulations, your site is live. Write two articles in your area of expertise a day and you will have more than 100 articles in a year circulating throughout the network, which will allow you to earn money. Just submit articles to article directories and you will add a signature file that mentions your expertise and your main website. Like I said, if you do this on hundreds of sites, you will soon see a flood of traffic to your site and the money will follow. Greetings Joomla for the holidays!